Musical Chair

Ryan McGinley

MUSICAL CHAIR

In 2003, when twenty-five-year-old Ryan McGinley became the youngest artist to have a solo début at the Whitney, there was every reason to think that he’d be a flash in the pan. The big color photographs of friends and lovers he showed then were made under the heady influence of Wolfgang Tillmans, Nan Goldin, and Larry Clark; without them, one feared, he was nothing. Instead, McGinley has not only proved himself to be as resilient as his idols, he’s also gone on to have an influence all his own. His loose, sensuous, exhilarating style is one of the most imitated around, but few can strike his seemingly effortless balance between finesse and immediacy. If that balance tilts toward hectic spontaneity in his new pictures at Team, it’s not just appropriate but inevitable. McGinley took these grainy, overexposed shots at Morrissey concerts, and he’s just as excited by the singer’s fans as he is by their charismatic idol. Roiling crowds and ecstatic individuals are bathed in magenta, yellow, green, and blue stage light, like devotees at a psychedelic shrine. McGinley’s camera swoons and sweats. He lets himself get carried away but never forgets to take us with him.

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